


Time of Your Life

by cablesscutie



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: 5 Times, Complications of Immortality, Gen, friendship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 11:38:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2427281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cablesscutie/pseuds/cablesscutie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thalia tries her best to be there for her little girl, even if the most she can manage is the occasional lullaby.<br/>or<br/>Five times Thalia sings for Annabeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time of Your Life

When they first find her, Thalia is torn. The little girl is helpless and scared and admittedly cute, but she and Luke are just barely making it themselves. She hangs back and lets Luke calm her down, watching with wide eyes as he hands over his bronze knife. Luke promises the little girl that she can be a part of their family. Thalia isn’t so sure. That night, she tells Luke that they should bring her back to her family. The idea obviously pains both of them, but even he admits that they can’t take care of her. They just aren’t parent material. But so with the night goes Luke’s resolve, and she ends up moving camp with them.

After a couple of days, Thalia starts to warm up to the kid. Annabeth is a much better fighter than she looks, and doesn’t seem to be slowing them down any, so things just might work out. Thalia isn’t exactly thrilled that the new addition to their group is taking up all of Luke’s attention, but she reminds herself that Annabeth isn’t used to this- people noticing her and wanting her around, so of course the kid is going to soak up as much adoration as she can. Luke and Thalia start making their safe houses just a tad wider, and neither of them ever brings up Annabeth’s parents again. She’s theirs now.

Despite her previous declarations, Thalia quickly appoints herself as Annabeth’s substitute mother. Thalia slips her extra snacks and makes sure to keep her face washed and hair combed. Luke is baffled by this sudden emergence of maternal instinct, and Annabeth just seems confounded by the idea of any amount of nurturing. Eventually, Thalia offers to trade Luke her night watch shift for babysitting. He looks like he wants to say “I told you so,” but Thalia fixes him with a warning glare and he just says “okay” instead.

And so, after dinner, Annabeth goes behind the tarp that Thalia had made Luke string up for a dressing room and changes into the pj’s they’d found her in before crawling into Thalia’s sleeping bag. She burrows down deep so that Thalia can just see her eyes peeking out over the top. The crown of downy blonde hair and cold, tiny feet pressed against her shins brings a flash of memory. Suddenly, she sees her bedroom back in California and a pair of Superman footie-pajamas and her hands move on their own, gently combing the tangles from Annabeth’s curls. Luke startles ever so slightly when Thalia starts to sing softly:  
"Another turning point,  
A fork stuck in the road.  
Time grabs you by the wrist,  
Directs you where to go.  
So make the best of this test and don’t ask why.  
It’s not a question but a lesson learned in time."

The only music she has are the Green Day CD’s she swiped along with her mother’s Discman on her way out and it’s the closest thing to a lullaby she knows- what she used to sing to Jason when he had a nightmare. Her voice is surprisingly good; a gentle soprano that makes Luke wonder how on Earth it belonged to his loud, aggressive partner. Annabeth doesn’t seem fazed at all and drops off to sleep almost instantly.

 

Six years later finds Thalia and Annabeth together again. Again not still, on account of that half-decade Thalia had spent as a pine tree. She’s not sure if she’s grateful that her father kept her from slipping away forever, or if she’s pissed that she lost all of that time. So much changed in her absence. For starters, Luke managed to go back on every promise he’d ever made to her. Second, Annabeth was a teenager. Older than Thalia had been that night on Half-Blood Hill, in fact.

It’s strange to see her so grown-up. To think that Annabeth had, little more than a year ago, traveled through the Underworld (quite literally stood at the edge of Tartarus and seen the throne room of Hades’s Palace, but all that was too unpleasant to think about) Right before everything went wrong, Thalia had still held Annabeth’s hand when they crossed the street, and she’d woken up to a girl with scarred limbs in full armor. It’s been a big adjustment for the both of them.

When she was a tree, Thalia had apparently kept aging, but only at half-speed, so that she looked to be fifteen, going on sixteen. When Chiron had helps her register for school, they have to get Hermes to help them forge Thalia’s birth certificate. According to her original documents, she’s about eighteen years old, but it’s had been years since she’s gone to school, and even with Annabeth’s help, eighth grade isn’t going to be easy. As non-enthused as she is about the prospect of sitting at a desk and writing book reports every day, she would be less thrilled about the idea of staying at Camp while Annabeth goes off to school in the mortal world. After a few more strings are pulled, Thalia and Annabeth are assigned to the same dorm room.

The night they move in, their Resident Advisor, a Sophomore from the from the Upper School named Tara, throws a “Get-to-know-you Gathering” in the common room. When it’s announced, Thalia rolls her eyes, and Annabeth sighs dejectedly, both of them hoping that they can avoid being dragged into the forced bonding. They have no such luck, and are herded into the enormous blanket fort that has been assembled in the center of the room. The pair quickly settle into the corner with the most tolerable people and Annabeth pulls The Perks of Being a Wallflower out of her back pocket, trying to hide the book behind one of the other girls.

Thalia manages to get out of the “Braid Train” since her hair is too short to do anything with anyway and she has no clue how to braid hair, but Annabeth is not so lucky. Her long blonde curls end up being yanked and twisted into as many configurations as Tara can think of while Thalia snickers from one of the lounge chairs. Eventually, the girls move on to “Truth” (no dares because apparently everything fun is against school policy) and nobody is spared. Sitting crisscross-applesauce in a circle, Tara claps her hands excitedly, and announces,  


“Okay! So, since Thalia got a little left out of the fun in our last activity, she gets the first question!”  


“Fan-damn-tastic,” she mutters.  


“Hm?” Tara cocks her head in confusion, and Annabeth stifles a laugh when Thalia responds with a tired, “I said fire away,” and the RA sits up straighter and narrows her eyes just a bit, apparently trying to size Thalia up and figure out the perfect question.  


“Ooh! I’ve got one: Celebrity crush. Who is it?” Annabeth briefly sees murder flash in Thalia’s eyes and takes that as her queue to step in.  


“Tara?” she asks weakly.  


“Yeah?”  


“I feel really sick. Like, nauseous and fever-y…I think I need to go lie down...”  


“Oh! Um, yeah, definitely!” it’s clear their RA hadn’t planned for this, and before she can gather her wits, Thalia jumps up from the circle and grabs Annabeth’s hands, hauling her to her feet.  


“I’ve got her,” she assures Tara, putting an arm around Annabeth, who is holding her stomach and, admittedly, looking pretty pale as well. “I’ve got it. We’re just gonna go back to our room. Talk to ya tomorrow.” Thalia ushers Annabeth into the elevator and pushes the button for the fourth floor before turning back to her friend with worried eyes. “What happened? What did you eat? Are you upset? Where - ”  


“Thalia!” Annabeth interrupts, now standing straight, cheeks flushed their normal, slightly rosy color. “I’m fine,” she laughs. “I just wanted to get you out of there before you got yourself brought up on assault charges.”  


The doors slide open, and they exit, walking side-by-side back to room 415. Thalia notices, a little alarmed, that Annabeth is now almost two full inches taller than her. She bumps the girl with her hip and admonishes, “Don’t do that without telling me, you scared me,” but her voice lacks its usual bite.  


“Hey, this is what you get when I improvise. Live with it.”  


“I guess. We can’t all be Jackson after all.” Annabeth snorts.  


“Oh gods, no! Humanity would’ve gone extinct years ago.”  


Thalia flops onto Annabeth’s bunk, closing her eyes, and the younger of the two sighs before taking her usual place at her desk chair, tossing a “Take your shoes off,” over her shoulder as she pulls out her math homework. Thalia can hear a CD being popped into the player and waits to see what they’re listening to tonight. There is a brief crackle of scratches, a skip, and then soft guitar picking in the background. The familiar old tune sounds a little bit different here, and Thalia tries to blame it on the place – the acoustics in here just suck – and not all of the time that was missed. Half-asleep and fading fast, Thalia is more mumbling than singing, but can’t stop herself from joining in despite it.  
“It’s something unpredictable,  
But in the end it’s right.  
I hope you had the time of your life.”

 

Annabeth is wounded, badly. Poisoned dagger deep in her shoulder, according to Percy, but Will Solace got it under control. “She’s tired and pretty uncomfortable, but she’ll be fine,” he finishes, still not looking entirely at ease. She sees her own worry reflected back in his face, and his fists are clenched. Thalia isn’t sure who he’s most angry with: Ethan for stabbing her, Annabeth for stepping in harm’s way, or himself for not being able to stop her. Considering how similar they are, Thalia assumes it’s the last one.

After she ushers Percy off to crash on a real bed, she follows his directions to the terrace, pausing outside the doors for a beat to steel her nerves before easing them open. She can’t cry, she knows that much. Annabeth has always looked to her for reassurance, and Thalia has let her down far more times than she’s comfortable with.

It’s worse than she expected. Annabeth is shivering like she has the flu and all the blood has drained from her tanned skin, leaving it a pale, unhealthy yellow. Thalia feels a lump rise in her throat as she takes a seat beside her little girl- who is technically older than her now, and far too battle hardened to be considered a girl- and barely holds back a grimace.

“So…it really looks that bad, huh?” Annabeth asks, in a voice that is far weaker than Thalia had been prepared for.  


“No!” She rushes to deny. “Not at all, just-”  


“Don’t be dumb, I’m aware that I look awful.”  


“Sorry.”  


“You weren’t even there, this is like negative ten percent your fault.”  


“Whoa, only negative ten? I had literally nothing to do with-”  


“Chill out. Seriously. I thought Percy was gonna puke when he was out here earlier. What is with you guys? You heard Will, I’ll be fine with some ambrosia and rest.”  


“It’s called being concerned. We kinda love you, so this whole thing is just a bit stressful for us.”  


“Really? Cuz I think it’s just peachy.”  


“Well not everything is about you,” she snarks, taking a seat on the concrete beside Annabeth’s lounge chair and pulling her knees up to her chest.  


“Well, fine then. How are the Hunters faring? Better than the campers?”  


“I don’t want to talk about that.”  


“You don’t want to talk about the group that you committed the rest of eternity to? That may have been a shortsighted decision then…”  


“I’m serious. I don’t want to talk about…everything going on out there,” Thalia waves her hand at the skyline.  
“Okay.”  


“How’ve you been? Do you like your school? Make any friends?”  


“Oh tons, I replaced you months ago.”  


“I’m trying to stay involved here, so would you quit giving me lip?”  


“What are you, my mother?” Annabeth teased. Thalia’s shoulders tensed. “What?”  


“Nothing.”  


“It’s obviously not nothing, what’s up? Is it your mom?”  


“No, no...It’s just...something I used to kind of think about. Before, ya’ know?”  


“Hate to break it to you, but we sort of have a lot of capital-B Befores. We’re complicated girls.”  


“Right after we met then. It sort of crossed my mind every now and then that I was going to turn eighteen way before you.”  


“And?” Thalia took a deep breath.  


“And I kind of thought - like once or twice - that maybe, eventually, I could...adopt you...or something.”  
“Thalia-”  


“It was a dumb idea. Nobody in their right mind would’ve given me custody anyway, it was just something stupid to think about. I had to feel like I could help, you know? I didn’t want it to be like Luke and I were just dragging you through all of our shit.”  


“It wasn’t like I would’ve gone back to my Dad’s house. If I hadn’t been with you two, I wouldn’t have had anyone. I never would’ve made it.”  


“Well, I worry. That’s the point. I’m certainly never going to get to do the whole kids thing now anyway. You’re the closest I’m going to get.”  


“Good,” Annabeth said, leaning back against the pillows on the lounge chair. Her eyelids are drooping, she needs rest, but naturally, Thalia can’t let it go just yet.  


“Good?”  


“Yeah, good,” Annabeth’s eyes fall shut, but the corner of her lips twitches in an almost-smirk as she tells Thalia, “A young woman needs a strong maternal figure.”  


“Right,” she exhaled a trace of a laugh. “She does.”

Annabeth’s breaths slowed and leveled off. Thalia reached up and ran her fingers through Annabeth’s hair, slowly working the tangles out, and the words came on their own.  
“It’s something unpredictable,  
But in the end it’s right.  
I hope you had the time of your life.” The violins swelled in her head and she hummed along; the two of them alone in the world. “Just like old times.”

 

Thalia doesn’t really know what to make of the squirming pink lump she has been handed, except for the fact that she loves it. Absolutely. Percy’s gone downstairs to see if the cafeteria is still open, and she is the first to arrive. It’s 2:37 a.m. and Annabeth looks like hell. Thalia supposes anyone would if they’d been woken up in the middle of the night to squeeze out an entire human being. But seriously, the girl looks like crap. Thalia knows in the back of her mind that her friend just became a mother and –to Percy anyway -she’s probably never looked more amazing, but Thalia is a hunter. None of this is supposed to appeal to her; weddings and children and growing old together.

It’s a horribly ugly process, and she herself has no desire to experience any of it. But there’s obviously something good about it if she’s already this attached to an overheated Martian that just exploded out of her friend like a sci-fi movie. Plus,  


“She’s kinda cute,” Thalia admits, daring to bounce the baby just a little in her arms, and cracking a tiny smile. Annabeth, on the other hand, looks like her face might split in two she’s so pleased by the declaration.  


“We think so too,” she says, scooting closer to Thalia and the newly-named Adrienne Jackson. She reaches out and tucks the blanket around her daughter a little tighter. Her smile softens, taking on a warmth that Thalia hasn’t seen in her since she’d stood as Annabeth’s “Eternal Maiden of Honor” last June and watched her little girl and idiot younger cousin promise the rest of their lives to each other. “Although I hope Percy hasn’t got his hopes up for a repeat.” Thalia turns to look at her.  


“What? You don’t want to have a whole minivan full of screaming kids?” she teases. Annabeth slumps back against the pillows and heaves an exhausted sigh.  


“Gods, no. I mean, I love Adrienne- I’ve never been happier- but I just couldn’t handle that.” She shakes her head, laughing without humor. “I’m not even sure I can handle this.”  


“Don’t be stupid, of course you can. If Luke and I managed to last a few weeks without you getting dismembered, you and Percy are going to be amazing, seriously.” Thalia switches Adrienne to her other arm, and Annabeth smiles at her gratefully.  


“It’s just pretty overwhelming.”  


“As opposed to your generally low-stress lifestyle?”  


“It’s different. I have no background for this. I don’t know anything about kids, in fact, the few I’ve met didn’t seem to like me all that much.”  


“Just trust your mother-figure, alright, dumbass?”  


“How’d you avoid, ya know...completely ruining me?”  


“Hey, I said there was no dismemberment. We basically shredded your psyche. I mean what with the dying, and the betraying and the not-really-being-dead, and then the whole immortality and the prophecy...we really did a number there. And it was horrible and I’m constantly kicking myself for not doing a million different things that would’ve saved you a lot of pain, but...that’s just kinda how life works. Everybody comes out of their childhood at least a little messed up- it’s how we learn to cope. So don’t worry about being perfect, alright?” Annabeth nods.  


“Alright,” she yawns. “I’ll shoot for keeping the kid in once piece. I’m pretty confident I can manage that much. Had plenty of practice,” she smirks, and Thalia can see the gears turning behind Annabeth’s eyes as she replays years of yanking Percy’s butt out of the line of fire. Her eyelids droop, and Thalia can tell that it’s taking all of her energy to stay awake right now.  


“Why don’t you get some rest,” Thalia suggests. Annabeth shakes her head but even that small movement looks like a monumental effort. “Seriously, Percy’s going to be back any minute, and after tonight, you aren’t going to sleep for about a year. Take a nap.”  


“But-”  


“Don’t argue with me, you’ll lose this one. After this, I’m gone ‘till Christmas, so take advantage of my help while it’s available, and let me bond with my adorable goddaughter.” Annabeth smiles that smile again, and this time Thalia can feel that it’s including her too, and she’s never felt less like a tree. Even if tomorrow, she’ll wake up in a tent, surrounded by thirty other teenage girls frozen in time, right now, she feels like she’s getting to be a part of Annabeth’s Something Permanent.  


“Okay,” Annabeth relents. “I’ll take a nap.”  


“Good.”  


“But if she starts crying-”  


“Give her to Percy. Got it.”  


“Thalia-”  


“Sleep,” she orders, and finally her friend listens, pulling the covers over herself and closing her eyes. It’s not even five minutes later that Thalia hears soft, steady breaths from across the room.

In the quiet, Thalia can hear the radio playing low in the corner. She stands up and walks around the room, rocking the baby gently as she sings along.  
“So take the photographs and still-frames in your mind,  
Hang it on a shelf  
In good health and good times.  
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial;  
For what it’s worth,  
It was worth all the while.”

 

It’s been so many years, and the daughter of Athena who was once renowned for her near-photographic memory can’t remember most of them. Rachel the blind-with-age seer stops by to make jokes about her own condition, Nico stays to reminisce, and Chiron can only bring himself to go once. He congratulates her on a life longer and fuller than most heroes, but realizes that perhaps it is harder to watch such a bright light fade than supernova. It hurts her old friends when she can’t recognize their aged faces. They remember the girl who, at seventeen, wielded weapons and wit with skill that rivaled Odysseus, and this addled old woman can’t possibly be her.

They realize that they hurt her just as much though. She’s still Annabeth, and she becomes so frustrated with herself when she can’t figure out something that she should know. The last to give up is her daughter, naturally. For a while, they talk like they used to on the phone as they made dinner in their separate houses, until Annabeth’s memory backs up to the days when Percy was still alive. Being Annabeth, she won’t let the issue of Percy’s absence drop whenever their daughter comes by. Each time Adrienne has to explain his death, her mother’s grief is as fresh as the first day, and it is not long before she can’t bear to break her mother’s heart like this every day.

It all comes down to Thalia. She is the last safe person. Thalia has not aged a day since that long-ago solstice, and the sight of her brings Annabeth to those days on the run with her and Luke, when nobody was a tree or led astray and there was no seaweed-brained husband to mourn.

Whenever she steps into Annabeth’s room in the nursing home, Thalia feels like she is the one who is dying. Annabeth was the last tether to who she had been as a mortal hero. Luke, Percy, Jason- they were all gone and it was the two girls against the world.

Thalia always signed in as Annabeth’s granddaughter, but today is different. Nico says that her soul is slipping- this is it, and Thalia has come to say goodbye. She won’t be coming back after this, so she drops the charade and fills out her visitor form the way she had always wanted to.

Date: February 17 Patient: Annabeth Jackson Name: Thalia Grace Relation: Mother  


She walks away quickly, before the nurse behind the desk can notice that something is different, and slips into Annabeth’s room. She’s asleep, and the lights are off, but when the door clicks shut, her eyes blink open. Her wrinkled face stretches into a faint smile as she recognizes Thalia, and the girl tries not to let Annabeth see how much she wants to cry. She pulls the chair from the table up beside the bed and looks at her old friend.  


“Hey,” Annabeth forces out. Even that small word is too much to ask now, and she struggles to catch her breath.  


“Hey, how’s my girl?” Thalia asks. Annabeth fixes her with a steely gaze that doesn’t seem nearly as intimidating as it once did.  


“You know.” Thalia wants to take it as a noncommittal answer, something traditionally accompanied by a shrug and a toss of blonde hair, but her friend’s hair hasn’t been blonde in over thirty years and Annabeth Chase doesn’t do noncommittal. Thalia has hid from everyone at some point or another in her life, and Annabeth has too, but they’ve never been able to hide from each other- especially not now. For heroes, it is often so much easier to lie to the ones you love than to admit to them the tragic reality, but the way both girls see it, there’s no point in avoiding the conversation any longer. The smile slips off of Thalia’s face and she nods slowly, takes Annabeth’s hand.  


“Yeah, I know. I’m just not ready.”  


“I know that too.” Thalia’s voice is choked and when she looks down at their intertwined hands, a tear fights its way out of the corner of her eye.  


“Come here,” Annabeth sighs, patting the space on the bed next to her.  


“Why?” Annabeth rolls her eyes.  


“Because the dying lady says so, dumbass.” Thalia laughs brokenly, but obeys, carefully lying on the other half of the bed - the space that should belong to Percy, but which he never occupied, not here. He never would’ve let Annabeth wind up in such a depressing place, but she forces herself not to think about how much better Annabeth’s life was when he was still around, and how much of that old happiness Thalia has seen Annabeth lose these last few years. She wants to help. She can’t let her best friend leave like this: the two of them sitting in silence, staring at the ceiling fan in a Long Island nursing home.  


“Your name,” Thalia starts, “Is Annabeth Jackson. But I know you remember yourself as Annabeth Chase. Jackson was your husband’s last name.”  


“Jackson,” Annabeth’s voice is little more than a whisper, almost reverent as she rolls it around in what’s left of her mind, testing to see if any bells go off.  


“Yeah, Jackson. Percy Jackson was his name. He’s actually my younger cousin. Son of Posiedon.”  


“I dated a son of Posiedon? What was I thinking?”  


“I used to wonder that myself. He was kind of an idiot. He would’ve gotten himself killed in about .5 seconds without you.” Annabeth laughed softly. “You used to call him Seaweed Brain. He wasn’t very good with comebacks, the best he could do for you was Wise Girl.”  


“He didn’t think of Bird Brain?”  


“Like I said: he was an idiot.”  


“Gods, I married a moron.” Thalia actually felt a real smile break through.  


“Yeah, you did.” She turned her head and studied Annabeth’s profile. If she ignored the wrinkles, focused on the line of her nose and the jut of her chin and cheekbones, Thalia could see her best friend still there. “But damn, did he love you.”  


“Oh yeah?”  


“Mmhm. And you loved him right back. It was actually pretty nasty,” Thalia wrinkled her nose and Annabeth turned to meet her eyes, laughing a little herself. It felt like middle school again, with the two of them lying on Annabeth’s bunk while Thalia teased her about her massive crush.  


Annabeth looked down at her hands, focusing on her wedding ring. She twisted it around her finger for a moment, weighing if she wanted to leave well-enough alone, before, naturally, deciding that she had to know and slipping it off. She squinted at it, but couldn’t make out the engraving. Her eyesight wasn’t much good, so she handed it to Thalia.  


“Something Permanent,” she read aloud. She handed the ring back and Annabeth slid it on again. “When you were young, you told him that you wanted to be an architect because nothing in your life had ever been permanent, so you were going to build a monument to last a thousand years.”  


“He was my something permanent,” Annabeth whispered, laying back and letting her eyes fall shut.  


“Yeah...I’m sorry I couldn’t be.”  


“You tried. That’s more than I can say for most people.” Annabeth hummed in the back of her throat and muttered, “I’m really tired, Thals.”  


“How many times did I tell you and Luke not to call me that?” She wasn’t ready. Not yet, and honestly, not ever. Annabeth was the last part left of her mortal life. Tomorrow, the story of her pine tree and the Golden Fleece will be nothing but legends. More stories of days long gone for Chiron to tell around the campfire. She thinks that she’s starting to see how Zoe Nightshade felt, lost in time and almost like a ghost.  


“Thalia-” She let out a shaky breath.  


“I know...I love ya, kiddo.”  


“I love you too. And relax, alright? I’m gonna be okay. I’ve got that idiot husband of mine waiting on the other side.  


“And don’t disappear. Check on my munchkin for me, make sure she’s okay.”  


“Okay.”  


“And take care of yourself. Don’t let me see your stupid face for a good long time.”  


“I promise you won’t. As long as you promise me that you and kelp for brains don’t get ambitious and bail on me.”  


“Deal.”  
Annabeth is too exhausted to keep chatting, so Thalia starts to sing; that same old song that is too old for most people to remember. By the time she reaches the end, just like when they was small and stood with Luke against the world, Annabeth is asleep, but Thalia pushes on until the very end.  
“It’s something unpredictable,  
But in the end, it’s right.  
I hope you had the time of your life...  
It’s something unpredictable,  
But in the end, it’s right.  
I hope you had the time of your life.”

Thalia had always imagined death to be something dramatic and harsh. That’s what it had been like for her so long ago on half-blood hill, and for every one of the hunters she had lost in the past seventy some-odd years. Watching Annabeth, she realized that in all her years, she had never seen someone die peacefully. She was a true hero after all, and true heroes are surrounded by tragedy.

But Annabeth’s death was not really tragic at all. Despite how it had hurt to watch her fade and how it felt like the world was being pulled out from under her, Annabeth had a good life. Friends, a husband, a daughter, and the career she’d always dreamed of. She got so much more than most demigods; granted, she deserved it, and probably a whole hell of a lot more, but she’d been happy. Thalia tried to be happy for her, but as Annabeth slowly burned off that last burst of energy and fell asleep, and then from sleep to something infinitely deeper, she found she just couldn’t.

A sob tore its way out of Thalia’s throat, and the dam shattered. She was struggling to breathe through it, hiccupping and shaking. She squeezed Annabeth’s hand, even though it wouldn’t hold hers back anymore, refusing to let go even after it had gone cold. Her eyeliner, supposedly waterproof, left dark stains on the pillowcase as she pressed her face into it, the lingering scent of Annabeth’s shampoo only serving to make her cry harder. It’s only when she hears the nurse coming around with dinner that she moves, hastily wiping her eyes before moving to stand at Annabeth’s side. She tucks a gold drachma into the palm of her limp hand and waits until it vanishes in a flash of warm light before bending to kiss her friend’s forehead, whispering “Tell Kelp-For-Brains that I said ‘hi’.”

Thalia opens the window and grabs for the branches of the maple tree outside. She casts a glance over her shoulder, as though she expects Annabeth to wake up and ask where she’s running off to, but there’s nothing. And then the doorknob is turning and she hears her wolf howling, and she is gone, leaving the staff to wonder for weeks whatever became of Annabeth Jackson’s final visitor.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is much appreciated! If you have any thoughts you would like to share (any at all, seriously) just post a comment- I'd love to hear from you. Or, you can come join me on tumblr as fire-lord-mai!


End file.
